Books from the HMML Basement is dedicated to the special collections at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. The collections hold over 10,000 rare printed books, along with several European, Ethiopian and other manuscripts. The articles in this blog will offer insights into these collections. You can search the contents of this blog by typing a term in the space below and clicking on "search."

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Thursday, February 23, 2012

Enough already!

De sanctissimo divinae trinitatis mysterio, earlier in the library at the Monastery of Ottobeuren,
now in the rare book collection at Saint John's University (Collegeville, MN). More on this title below.

Every cataloger dreads them--multiple titles bound into one item. And yet, with books (and especially smaller ones) this was a common practice up to the early 19th century, when publishers started issuing books already bound. Many times these bound-together titles can provide unexpected insights into an earlier time.

An example of this is a book bound in 1550, according to the date on the binding, but which later came into the monastic library at Ottobeuren (handwritten date of 1598). The first title in the book is a Catholic work called the Loci communes rerum theologicarum by Johann Hoffmeister (Ingolstadt, 1549), and the final title is Encomium aquilae (Tubingae, 1532) written by a Premonstratensian canon who was forced to flee the newly Protestant city of Tuebingen about 1532.

In between these two "Catholic" works is a title page on which the author's name has been inked out. Later, someone added the name "Philipp Melanchthon" in ink (his Doctrinae physicae elementa, 1550). Only then does it become apparent that the outer texts may have been a cover for an author whose close relationship to Martin Luther would not be accepted in a Catholic context. Now the remaining question concerns the first owner of the book, but unfortunately that information is covered by a later ownership label, which I hope some day to be able to have removed.

And then there are the gatherings of dissertations. Saint John's has a number of such collections, bound together in one piece, some of them quite early. One volume bound in pigskin contained 20 different titles, most of which are not widely held in North America. The ownership note on the first title page indicates that the collection was probably bound in the late 16th century. The litany of titles required a lengthy note in the catalog record. Here are the contents:

Here is a photographic overview of the titles bound into this one volume:

Click on any image to see it enlarged.

And last, and perhaps not least?

Sometimes, the way titles are bound together can give us deeper insight into a time and place distant from our own. In this case, perhaps, the primary determinant for binding all these titles into one volume was the need to save on binding work in a large library. Either way, these collections pose challenges to the cataloger and his/her stamina!

Now, back to the stacks -- more collections of bound-together titles are waiting!